Exile In Ptolemy's House

Safe, at long last, behind closed, locked doors and windows, behind heavy, hanging, purple drapery: plush, pellucid, subterranean refuge. Far from the proverbial maddening crowd, out of sight: a dimly lit room, bathed in soft, golden reflections. In the centre of the room: a single, solitary candle burning, its flame rising, dancing, serpentine; all around, panoramic, rustic mosaics quiver and leap across the walls: towering stags, drunken centaurs, gladiators, spiteful, leering gods; the ghost of sound echoes, bouncing through ceramic, glass, and stone hills: Motion in Rest, the eye of the hurricane, the calm before the storm. At the end of the day, people still holy, w/ rites still sacred, secret, hidden eyes. Ones "deep-dark", to be sure, but decidedly not "dreamless". All around: reassuring, but oddly unending smiles, ones perpetual, fixed, but only seemingly uninhabited, ones laid among polished scales and in tough, gleaming skin. In a room filled with playful, reeling, ecstatic confusion and revelation reigning supreme, the supplicants' legs fail on what seems to be a swaying, rocking floor. Mesmerizingly bright sedan chairs invitingly blaze by the walls. Draped in luxurious purple, the divans are infinite, are more desirable, more coveted than any treasure trove, any silver gold. A bottomless, almost overwhelming calm descends. Outside itself, and if only for "a brief shining moment", the Mind, in all Its glory, seems infinitely deeper, farther reaching, more focused, but free. The axe can no longer fall.